Be Excellent To Each Other

In honour of reading a book for the first time in what feels like years, I went and read three more.

2 - Skin Game by Jim Butcher
3 - Peace Talks by Jim Butcher
4 - Battle Grounds by Jim Butcher

Yeah, just catching up with the latest three Dresden Files books. I had read 'Skin Game' before, but it was ages ago and I thought it would be sensible to remind myself WTF was going on before going in to the new books.

All very much as expected. Despite being very formulaic and silly, they're still extremely enjoyable to read, and packed to the brim with excellent characters, even if everyone is too beautiful and amazing at everything all of the time. Just great fun books.

Fucking love the Dresden books

Czech Rep - I’m pretty sure I could sing this one better and I’m shite. Tune heavily borrowing from ‘bulletproof’

Romania - Orlando bloom combines bullfighting with disco

You’re in the book thread, Z

I agree with both posts, though!

Portugal - Coven of Enya

Well, I’m settled here now.

I’ll move seats now out of respect for Eurovision x

I want the Italian guy's sparkly suit

Get off the piano though, that's just rude

Fuck's sake Zardoz

Dude. Next door

Haha!

Keep listing them! I've gotten several recommendations from this thread, but I haven't posted on a lot of them. Also, you're pulling our average WAAAAY up, without you we'd look like a bunch of illiterate goons.

9.) The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K. Le Guin
Somehow I've got this far without reading any of UKL's books, but I really liked this one. I shall read more!

4) Kill Your Friends by John Niven
Well, I wanted something easier to read after Perdido Street Station and this certainly was easier to read - sadly it was horrifically [everything bad you can think of]-ist. I'm not kidding when I say that it taught me new words for describing people of the opposite sex, different races and (mainly) cocaine.

It wasn't an especially clever or thought-provoking book, but its main drive of "look how terrible the main character is, don't you want to see what he'll do next?" did work fairly well, and it's mercifully short. I have since found out there's a movie, so I'll be watching that, obv.


5) Rum Runner by J.A. Konrath
It's another Jack Daniels book! I thought they'd finished, but apparently I'm very wrong about that and there are two to go. But anyway. Rum Runner sees yet another previously-unmentioned murderer that Jack put away long ago getting out of jail and trying to kill her. But who cares if it's contrived, it's still entertaining, it's still got Harry as a sidekick (this time with a meth-addicted rescued parrot called Homeboy) and it's got an excellent meta chapter about mobile gaming.

Correction - there are eight more Jack Daniels books after the "last" one, including another "last" one (which itself is only second of the eight books).

Fuck me, James Corden is in it.

Dogs of War - Adrian Tchaikovsky. "I was made to be a weapon but I have lived a life. I was born an animal, they made me into a soldier and treated me as a thing." I struggle to sum this up properly - other than "it's great". It starts as being about a squad of bioforms, animals made with electronic communications and other modifications to turn them into effective, biddable, fighting machines. But its scope takes in a lot more. The fighting is done well, the politics believable and the ending covers something even more sinister and important than the possibility of cyborg-type enhancements. Excellent sci-fi that doesn't feel that far away.

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush - Eric Newby. I was conflicted by this one. I have a different book of his on the kindle, so it must have been recommended by someone I respect, and this is his most famous book, so I'm all set for something I like. He took the walk in the 1950s, and it's an interesting tale of what happened, if a bit scattergun in approach. But there's an undercurrent of yet another bloody British explorer who wasn't prepared (though he's clearly fit to have got where he did) because that's cheating. Meanwhile the natives, as with other mountaineering, can stroll up and down the mountain/hostile terrain at will, helping for and waiting for the rich 'explorer' to get on with it. He's not at all dismissive of local people, but it still just seemed a bit of a shit expedition. Equally, if he doesn't go, we don't hear about any of it, I suppose. So. Odd, intriguingly written, in that it's not just a list or description but something a bit madder, but ultimately a bit unsatisfactory.

Foreign Fruit - Jojo Moyes. A story set in two time periods, of loves lost and gained. She might be the queen of slightly schmaltzy love stories that are also page turners. I finished it, I emoted, but I still didn't really like it. Thankfully the children mostly disappear after the first third, as their voices are not at all convincing, but then the whole thing feels, probably deliberately, a bit out of time. Like stepping into a lovely warm bath if you can go with it, but a bit like walking into a weirdly grinning cult if you're not.

I've recently read this,and the sequel, and both are great. Well worth a read.

Oh look, there's a sequel, thanks! I don't know if I realised when I bought it, but I own it, so I'll get to it soon.

I've read a couple of really good Adrian Tchaikovsky novels, one about wasp men fighting antpeople, and another about people who get brain merged with space spiders. Both very fine indeed.

The first of those is a decent sized series, all pretty good. The one about the spiders I loved but the sequel about octopii I got bored of.

I read Children of Time last year, I think. I liked it too. I think I dodged the sequel because it was described to me as "basically the same thing with different creatures and not as good".

12. So Far... by Kelsey Grammer

Written in the 1990s at the peak of Frasier, Kelsey Grammer's memoirs are about as close to the American Partridge as one could wish for. Yes, the trauma of his life is there, but with very little emotional scarring visible in the text, Grammer preferring to see it as a prelude to his obvious greatness. He uses the book to settle scores with rivals, and needless to say he always has the last laugh. The highlight, and I swear I am not making this up, is a paragraph describing how the teenage Kels concluded he was not, as he had thought, God.

Read for the horror, than toss in the charity bin.

13. Bitch: A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal by Lucy Cooke

A fascinating look at the relatively underexplored world of the females of the species, and how mainstream science has tended to ignore anything that isn't obviously male. We learn how ducks have evolved protections against forced sex, how virgin birth is a thing, how female bonobos exert their dominance, and other fascinating developments in biology and zoology. As with her previous book, Cooke is an engaging and witty author, clearly loving her subject.

It's also a very useful reminder that it's all too easy to project our values and culture onto things, preventing us from understanding the wider picture. The world isn't as patriarchal and binary as we think it is, and using human terms to explain non-human behaviour can be very distorting.

Highlight is the chapter about why some spiders eat their mates.

I got the audiobook of this to listen to whilst I was gardening, but I think I’m actually going to return it for another, which I’ve only done once before (Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club, which seemed to be ghostwritten by a fourteen year old). The audiobook of Bit h is read by the author, and that seems to be a mistake. I can get over the slightly grating voice, but the author seems to be shouting everything to me and every single line seems to be punctuated with vocal exclamation of importance and awe where, often, none deserves to be. It’s like watching that physicist chap from D:Ream, who, yes, has a charming enthusiasm, but who gets a bit tiring after a while because is sand *really* that amazing?

Autumn - Ali Smith. The first in her seasonal quartet (guess what the other three are called?) I picked up the other three on Kindle, so got a paper version of this one so I could get on with them. It follows a young girl and her much older neighbour, flitting between their lives and different time periods, culminating in a Britain post Brexit vote. The characters are lovely, the politics on the side are angry but not overpowering to everything else, and it's not overlong. Great.

Leviathan - Rosie Andrews. A gentle monster book? In that the monster is always in the background, just occasionally in the foreground, and there is some mystery and some mythical-type activity, but most of this is from the point of view of Thomas, a soldier who returns to find everything changed at home and dark accusations of witchcraft hanging around. I enjoyed it, but there was a bit of me thinking that not all that much was happening. Hugely atmospheric, but felt like a TV show without much budget to actually show you the monster or any effects.

I keep on meaning to reread 'Autumn' and then start on the rest of the series. If I remember correctly (*hastily searches the BeeX Vault*) I enjoyed it at the time.

10.) A Very British Coup - Chris Mullin
A very left-wing PM is elected ( apparently based on Tony Benn, but could easily be Jeremy Corbyn, other than the whole "elected" thing ) and the "Establishment" decides that they're not happy. All sorts of skulduggery occurs, from leaks to the papers from MI5 to the CIA trying to crash the currency. Quite a neat little thriller that goes along at a decent pace and wraps up in under 250 pages. Apparently the TV show was pretty good too, although it looks like they changed some of the plot quite a bit.

The TV show was excellent

Oooo just seen this, was given Dogs of War as a Christmas present a few years ago and loved it. Shame about the title, it's a bit generic...'Good Boy' or 'Good Dog' would have been better. I too hadn't realised there was a sequel - To Amazon!

In that case I shall check it out!

I picked it up as a deal of the day, and those repeat from time to time, so if you're patient...

Time away with sun, and a looong time on an overnight ferry means - reading.

Girl, Woman, Other - Bernadine Evaristo. Had this for ages, finally read it, vg. Moves between the lives of several women who are connected to each other, loosely bound around a play one has written that is about to premier as the book opens. A look at their lives, how they relate to each other and how they treat each other and are treated. None of which means it is over-serious or humourless.

A Thousand Ships - Natalie Haynes. Haynes does the "Natalie Haynes Stands Up For the Classics" radio show, and between those and Pat Barker's book, above, I've taken in a fair amount of art giving female perspectives on the classics, and particularly the Odyssey and Aeneid. As a result, there were one or two bits that were a little over-familiar, but overall this is great; there are 42 chapters, some people or groups get multiple, some just one, and the narrative shifts from gods to mortals as she retells the story. The chapters from Penelope, at first understanding, then frustrated, through to outright exasperation, waiting for Odysseus to finish his long journey home, were my favourites.

Nobody Walks - Mick Herron. By the author of Slow Horses (out now on Amazon, vg), this is a standalone thriller, and very well done, if a little standard on the "ooh, what are the intelligence services up to now, and who is acting honourably?!?" front. An ex-agent discovers his son has died and goes home to decide what to do next. Competent thriller, and the ending just about saved it from feeling like every other story of this type.

Crocodile Hunter - Gerald Seymour. I love Gerald Seymour books, though I've never read two in quick succession. I'll change that with this one, as it in a "Jonas Merrick" series, unusually for Seymour. He writes meticulously researched thrillers about something current, and he's been at it for a long time so Harry's Game is about the IRA, through to insurgents and, here, an elite fighter returning to the UK and planning an attack. Seymour's dialogue is clipped and efficient - I think if he were more famous, it would be widely parodied, and if you don't get on with his style, you will dislike everything he does. I like it, and it works, though it is definitely a bit other-worldly. He also usually specialises in very uncertain, often ambiguous endings where you really can't tell who is going to win, and if they do, whether it was worth it. Here, because Merrick (an old analyst who saves his career on the brink of retirement, almost by accident) had already returned in another book, I enjoyed the slightly lowered sense of anticipation leading to the end. I'd love you to try GS if you like thrillers, but fear you might feel they're from the 1950s. If anyone else likes him, let me know.

Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams. Another book I've had for ages, and been meaning to read but was a bit put off, thinking it might be a bit worthy as an award winner. Um. no. Queenie gets sort-of-dumped by her boyfriend and looks for happiness/a sense of self everywhere, including a lot of sex and whatever anyone suggests, along with telling herself she'll turn over a new leaf at work, even as she heads away from her desk to chat to her friend. It's a bit Fleabaggy, I suppose I'm saying, with a compelling voice and good humour along the way.

14. The Tiime-Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain by Ian Mortimer

The fourth in his highly enjoyable overviews of life in ye olden days, this one looks at the Regency (loosely defined by the author as 1789-1830). Mortimer takes us through all levels and aspects of life during this period of rapid change, with a wry humour. Using diaries and letters from the time really helps bring the period to life.

Bear Head - Adrian Tchaikovsky. Sequel to Dogs of War. Nearly as good, perhaps just as good, but familiarity bred minor criticism. Nothing I can put into words, really - it's good, it's a satisfying sequel that jumps quite a long way ahead.

Maddaddam - Margaret Atwood. Sequel to Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. I didn't know that, and only read the first. Both are summed up very quickly, and you can get on with this one, though I suspect I have missed out by not reading the one in the middle. Dystopia, with the after shocks of a pandemic having wiped out most of mankind, and a created race taking much of their place. It becomes also a story about innocence, as the new race are taught old ways by what's left of mankind. The book doesn't dwell on it, but you're left to. Excellent, bleak and hopeful in equal (YMMV) measure.

Klara and the Sun - Kazoo Ishiguro. Another eminent writer who does sci-fi, almost by stealth - in that, if you don't go into it thinking it's sci-fi, you might not think of it that way. Klara is an AF, waiting in a window to be bought by a person. You find out what an AF is fairly soon, and it's not a huge spoiler, but I liked not quite knowing. It's seen entirely from Klara's innocent perspective, and I couldn't help pondering how much she was designed the way she's presented - knowing little, and constantly trying to make sense of it - and how much her ability to work things out that other AFs couldn't was by design. It ends philosophically like the best of Westworld - what are artificial intelligences, and what do we owe them? - and without answers.

I’ve read the Madaddam trilogy and a couple of years later I still think about those books often, maybe every couple of weeks. Actually, I probably think of Margaret Atwood’s writings more than any other book/film/TV storytelling, because there are so many themes reflected in reality.

6) Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

JBR wrote about it. I agree with him. Good dog, Rex!

...

I'm sure I've missed a book out, somewhere.

15. The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Evelyn Waugh

An alcoholic author suffers paranoid hallucinations on a leisure cruise. I only kept going because Waugh can turn a phrase but this isn't one of his better works. I was completely underwhelmed by the mystery, how it played out, and how it concluded. Just as well this was a library book as I wouldn't have paid full price for it.

7) Verity by Colleen Hoover

What's this? A romantic novel that's also a psychological horror OH FUCK SIGN ME UP BIOTCH. So Lowen is a writer but not really a well-known one, but the publishing house of a famous author called Verity wants her to finish off the series of books Verity was writing, because Verity is in a coma and shit. So Lowen goes to Verity's house to look through her office full of notes and OH NO! She falls in love with Verity's husband Jeremy! And oh no! She finds Verity's first draft of an autobiography and it turns out Verity was a FUCKING NUTBAR but should she tell Jeremy WELL SHOULD SHE?

This is a fucking solid book, and well worth reading. The author normally does straight-up romance novels and this is her first time trying something different, and it really works.

16. Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Not the kind of thing I usually read, but everyone was raving about it on here so I thought I'd give it a try. I really enjoyed it - I think I read the first half or so in one sitting!

Thanks everyone - might explore some more of his stuff.

No, read Verity.

17. Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us by Brian Klaas

Using a mix of interviews, psychology, biology, and political science, Klaas discusses whether certain people are naturally drawn to power, and if being in power makes people corrupt. It's an interesting broad sweep of various ideas, pulling ideas and research from various disciplines. Klaas is a great storyteller and knows when to use an analogy and when to let the research stand on its own. I felt the strongest chapters were those on how we can design institutions and protocols to reduce opportunities for graft, mostly because these were more in Klaas's research area than implications of baboon zoology.

4. The Gangster - Scott Siglar (audiobook) - Book 6 in the Galactic Football League



Set in a lethal pro football league 700 years in the future, The GFL series are stories that combines the intense gridiron action of “Any Given Sunday” with the space opera style of “Star Wars” and the criminal underworld of “The Godfather.” Aliens and humans alike play positions based on physiology, creating receivers that jump 25 feet into the air, linemen that bench-press 1,200 pounds, and linebackers that literally want to eat you. Organized crime runs every franchise, games are fixed and rival players are assassinated.

I am a big fan of Scott's work, from the GFL series to his horror stuff.

The Salt Path - Raynor Winn. I've a whole pile of books that were in the first National Book Token cryptic puzzle - famous books I'd never heard of, and this is one. Because of the provenance, I've no idea what they're about. This is a story of walking the South West Coastal Path, which is very tough - a very strong ex-runner who used to do a podcast had a go at it and had to pull out, and it became a running joke (Marathon Talk). Here, the incentive is that the couple have nothing left, so it's this or sit around contemplating their navels. It could stray into sentimentality or cod-philosophy, but manages to touch on those without rejecting them but also without trying to teach you anything. It regularly reduced me to tears, even though the author presents fantastic acts of simple kindness or of minor cruelty pretty much equally, and without much judgment. Into that gap I poured my own sentiment, I suppose. I loved it, in case you can't tell, though it's just a simple story really - it's all in the telling.

One Two Three Four - Craig Brown. I've had this ever since he won the Baillie Gifford award, knowing Malia and Kern had both recommended it. It's fabulous - tells the story, seemingly scattergun in places, bringing to life the world of The Beatles and just how much craziness there was surrounding them. At my age, I grew up with some idea of it but without any direct experience, which felt a pretty good perspective, but I don't think it matters - fan or not, unless you're determined that The Beatles are terrible and overhyped, there's plenty here to enjoy. He occasionally strays into alternate history what-ifs, which are sometimes interesting but didn't always hit for me. But that's a minor cavil.

Fits nicely with recent "A Word in Your Ear" podcasts, who did some specials for Paul's 80th - if you only have time for one, listen to the Danny Baker one. And I moved straight on to Project Hail Mary, dedicated to John, Paul, George and Ringo. I mean, they're everywhere, so it's not surprising, but it still felt like the book was in the middle of everything else I was doing.

1984 - hadn't ever read this. Finished it last night. Have me a nightmare. Christ. Winston (awful person) got what he deserved.

5. The Stone Wolves - Scott Siglar (audiobook)

A GFL Novella
The five members of an elite commando group nicknamed “the Stone Wolves” once raged against Creterakian rule. Now, four decades after their heyday, they each try to stay alive and eke out a living. But a friend from the past won’t let them move on, nor will their bitterest enemy. Hopscotch, RedWire, the Killer, Lulz and Recoil will soon wish their pasts could stay dead.

It is a great book, last time I read it was 20 years ago.